ntative constitution,
unhappily, a matter of necessity; and the supreme power
has devolved upon me. The great responsibility which is
thereby imposed on me, and the arduous nature of the
functions which I have to discharge, naturally make me
most anxious to hasten the arrival of that period when
the executive power shall again be surrounded by all the
constitutional checks of free, liberal, and British
institutions."[47]

The problem to be solved is stated and partly solved in the famous
report on the affairs of Canada subsequently published by the High
Commissioner--perhaps the most remarkable document in British colonial
history. It showed the keenest insight into knotted complications, and
at the same time it made practical and far-seeing suggestions, which
reduced the problem to its simplest terms, and prepared the way for a
legislative union upon a sovereign scale, and with a provincial
autonomy having the happiest results.

"I expected," he declared, "to find a contest between a government and
a people; I found two nations warring in the bosom of a single state."

[Footnote 47: _Quebec Gazette_, 29th May, 1838.]

Nor could any lasting reform be accomplished unless the hostile
divisions of Lower Canada were first reconciled. As far as the French
population were concerned, he found an explanation of their
antagonism, not so much in their unjust exclusion from political
power, as in the grudging and churlish patronage with which privileges
were one by one conceded; while, on the other hand, the Loyalists were
intolerant to a degree, regarding every favour shown to their rivals
as a slight put upon themselves, and professing principles which were
thus summed up by one of their leaders: "Lower Canada must be
_English_ at the expense, if necessary, of not being _British_."
Elsewhere Lord Durham confesses the overbearing character of
Anglo-Saxon manners, especially offensive to a proud and sensitive
people, who showed their resentment, not by active reprisal, but by a
strange and silent reserve. The same confession might still be made
concerning a section of English-speaking Canadians, who seem to
consider it a personal grievance that French Canadians should speak
the French language. Lord Durham would probably have reminded them
that conquest does not mean that birthright, language, and custom,
spirit and racial pride, are spoils and confiscations of the
conqueror.

[Illustration: Lord Li